


Howling to the Moon

by KaiserdeDiez



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 16:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17308157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaiserdeDiez/pseuds/KaiserdeDiez
Summary: Taylor Hebert always wanted to be a hero. However, the events surrounding her trigger event cause her to go down a path that she hadn't anticipated taking. Now she finds herself having to make decisions that, once upon a time, would have shocked her.





	1. Loss 1-1

Taylor wept and screamed and banged her fists against the locker door but, deep down, she knew that no one was going to come for her. None of the students cared about her enough to intervene and the faculty didn’t regularly roam the halls. Her only hope of getting out was the off chance that a janitor would stop by and take pity on her. However, given how her life and luck had been going for the last year that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. And so, in between scratching at herself to get the bugs off of her and opening up routes of infection in the biohazard-filled locker (not that that was really on her mind at the moment) she was banging on and kicking the locker door in the hopes that she could break open the door. Given her slight frame, though, not likely.

She had left class early, been allowed to leave early. Been excused. She couldn’t think of why at the moment. Instead, she was focused on the here and now. Sophia, Madison, and Emma had tried to shove her into her locker. She had resisted, of course, which had merely earned her a beating from Sophia and, while nursing her bruised side, the trio managed to force her into the septic locker.

It was about this time that Taylor began to lose hope. She was going to die in her locker. A filthy, toxic locker full of bugs and, well, she didn’t want to think about what else. Regardless, it was a disgusting place and she was going to die in it. She was going to die in a shithole school full of people that didn’t care and she was finding it harder to care herself every moment. Then it happened. She felt…something.

The best way to describe it was as an expansion, like she was quickly becoming too large for her skin. It wasn’t actually uncomfortable, but it was disconcerting, so she tried to resist it. Tried to hold it in. As she tried to resist the feeling of swelling, she began to regain her desire to escape, her will to cry out. She felt a desire to rage at the injustice of it. That was when things went fuzzy. She could clearly remember the stench becoming almost unbearable and she could clearly remember hearing the crunch and groan of metal as she knocked the door off of her locker.

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Sophia was walking back to class with Emma and Madison. It was math, one of the few that the three had in common (as well as their favorite punching bag) and it was also the subject that Sophia hated the most. That was a hard comparison, too. She really hated most of the classes. Hell, she hated most of the people, too. They were all simpering, whiny little fucks. Emma and Madison were two of the few who weren’t. Well, Emma was. Sophia wasn’t so sure about Madison.

To be honest, Madison was more Emma’s friend, but Sophia tolerated her because she at least wasn’t (usually) annoying and even had a concept of the pecking order of life. She wasn’t really a true predator, but she knew the girl was trying to be. Sophia supposed that she could at least help the girl find her way. For Emma. That was when she heard the roar.

The trio stopped to listen, all of them curious. It was soon followed by another roar, closer than the first, and then they heard stomping. Shortly afterward, the three saw a giant wolf-like creature turn the corner. One look at the trio and the creature started its way toward them, menacingly.

“Run!” Sophia shouted and she and her two (well, one-and-a-half-ish) friends took off at a dead sprint away from the monster, with Madison and Emma screaming in terror. She knew that Emma and Madison had no way to fight back. They’d only get hurt trying, which meant she had to lead the creature away so she could deal with it herself.

When they came to a familiar tee in the hallway, Sophia saw her chance. “You two go right!” she yelled, “I’ll draw it off.”

The trio came to the tee and went separate ways. Sophia stopped for a moment to dig something out of her pocket and then waited for the creature to appear again. It didn’t take long. As soon as the werebeast came into view, Sophia threw a mechanical pencil at its head. Not an ideal weapon, but it got the creature’s attention well enough. “Hey! Over here ugly!” she yelled at it.

After another roar the creature started running toward her and Sophia started running again, but she had a plan. It wasn’t long before she came to a door leading to a storage room. Ripping open the door, Sophia ducked inside and ran straight to a shelf against the wall on her left. As she heard the cape (it took her an embarrassingly long time to figure out it could be a cape and not a monster from the movies) near the door, Sophia started rummaging around in a space between the shelf and the wall, feeling her hand close on her gear.

As she drew away from the wall she heard the rampaging cape right outside the door, she shifted to her shadow state and turned and dove between its legs. She stood up in quick, fluid moment and put her mask on in a practiced motion. The cape went on and was secured without effort and she had one of her crossbows up and ready in no time. That’s when she noticed that the cape was now just…standing there. He even seemed to deflate, for lack of a better word. This was not acceptable.

“Hey, shit head!” The cape turned to look at her, “Don’t tell me you’re giving up already!” Well, that appeared to be exactly what was going on, because the cape was already turning around to leave. Sophia shot a bolt right in front of his foot. He leapt back a bit in surprise and turned back around.

“Don’t think that you can just step onto my home-turf and come after me and my friend like this without answering to me?!” she yelled. “Well think again!” she said as she raised her crossbow again.

Sophia expected many things, such as her foe-to-be attacking or even backing away in fear. What she didn’t expect was dismissal. “Fuck off, Hess,” he said, before turning back around. Wait. Now that she stopped to look, the werewolf (what else was she going to call it) looked to have very long hair. It kind of reminded her of Hebert’s hair. Wait.

“Hebert? No fucking way!” she said.

Hebert turned around to look at her again. Yeah, it was definitely Hebert, she was sure of it now. So, the little freak had finally snapped. How pathetic. “Look at you! You spend a little time in a locker and you snap, is that? Do you know how sad that is?”

Taylor just snorted and turned back around. Like Sophia didn’t matter, like she wasn’t a threat. Like she wasn’t a true predator. That was unacceptable. “Hey! I’m talking to you! What, you had a bad day and now you’re gonna just go home and cry to your mommy!?” She saw Hebert tense at that. Bingo. Normally, the emotional side of things was Emma’s territory, but she wasn’t here at the moment. Besides, Sophia had been paying attention.

“Oh, wait, I forgot she’s dead. I guess that means you’re off to go cry to your sad-sack of a daddy.” Well, that seemed to do it, based on how Hebert was turning around and trembling. “I see you’ve got some backbone after all.”

With a roar, Taylor charged. This was going to be good. Sophia turned back into her shadow state and let Taylor’s hand go right through her. As soon as the freak passed by, Sophia shifted back and shot one of her tranquilizer darts at her. Not that she thought that one dart would do much to a seven-foot werewolf. Hebert certainly didn’t seem to notice.

Then Sophia drew Hebert outside, allowing for more room to maneuver, keeping her attention with a few well placed tranqs. What followed was a flow of Hebert trying clumsily to hit Sophia, giving Sophia plenty of time to her shadow state and earning Hebert nothing but another tranquilizer dart every now and then. Sophia found herself glad that the other students had been going to their post-lunch classes. She didn’t want to have to deal with trying to coral a crowd.

It was after tagging Hebert with the twelfth tranq that Sophia heard approaching sirens. That meant that back-up wasn’t far behind which, for once, Sophia was glad for. She had expected it to take a few trans to put something the size of the werewolf in front of her down, but twelve!? The girl had obviously gained either an immunity to toxins or one hell of a regenerative ability. Based on the way that her tranqs were systematically pushed out of Hebert’s body, Sophia was thinking regeneration. Well, it was time to try something else.

Sophia shot a tranq at Hebert’s neck, hitting her just above the collarbone, right in the center. She then jumped, entered her shadow state, and pushed her arm through the glass vial on the bolt and shifted back. The resulting explosion of glass shredded the front of Hebert’s neck, causing the monstrous girl to stumble backwards, clutching the bloody wound. It was about that time that Aegis and Kid Win arrived on the scene carrying Vista and Clockblocker respectively.

As Hebert pulled her hands away from her neck wound, Sophia could see that it had closed and the glass fell to the ground. Well, that hadn’t lasted long.

“Listen up!” Sophia shouted at the new arrivals. “She’s got really strong regeneration going, so hit her hard!”

Hebert looked to see that more had come and whatever rage was driving her to fight vanished as she turned and ran on all fours, away from the gathering crowd of junior heroes. Well, Sophia hadn’t driven her off completely by herself, but it was good enough for her. Now it was time to chase her new prey.

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Taylor didn’t know what was happening. There were so many sensations going through her head. Everything was so loud and her nose sang with scents she had never smelled before and couldn’t identify and she was so scared. She knew she had gotten herself into trouble, but she couldn’t focus through the overwhelming fright and the unparalleled sensations. She knew she had to get to her dad. She had been trying to get to her dad earlier, that she could remember, but not why. She couldn’t focus enough to figure out why. So she ran home.

Home, however, was something she was having trouble finding. Everything was so blurry. It was like when she had her glasses off but much worse. Then she heard the sound of her pursuers again and she knew she had to lose them, so she ducked into an alleyway. She had no idea where she was going to hide. She knew she’d be too large to hide in most places. Then she caught a whiff of salt and she suddenly thought of the bay and where the storm drains emptied into the ocean. So, she turned and followed the smell of sea salt.

Her journey was punctuated with screams and honks and squealing breaks as she ran down sidewalks and across roads.

“Sorry!” she yelled back as she leapt over a man to avoid trampling him. She managed to reach the coast and then ran along it looking for a storm drain. There!

When she reached the entrance, she groaned in frustration. She had forgotten that there were bars on the drains to keep people from walking in. The sounds of her pursuers made her desperate, though, and she started tugging on the bars. After a full-body tug, two of the bars came free. Taylor repeated the process for several of the other bars until she was able to fit.

She ran down the tunnel, taking random turns to through off pursuit. She didn’t know how long she was running around the storm drains, but after a bit she felt confident that she had lost the heroes, at least for awhile. She felt secure enough to sit down and take some time to think through the confusing jumble of her thoughts.

It took a moment and more than a little bit of breathing to clear the adrenaline coursing through her veins. As she calmed down she was able to process the scents and sounds. Once she grew used to the extra information from her heightened senses, she was able to better tune them out. Ignore the ones that didn’t matter.

She remembered that she had been called to Principle Blackwell’s office. Once there, she had been informed that her father had been involved in an altercation at work with the ABB and now he was in the hospital in a coma. Taylor suspected it had to do with Sophia putting E88 tags on her locker and making sure some junior wanna-be ABB members saw them. And then they’d retaliated against her family for it. She had been told that she was excused to go visit him. While she had been walking down the halls to go home she had been ambushed by Winslow’s Trio of Bitches and shoved into her locker, stuffed full of rotten, used tampons and pads. There were so many that they must have been raiding the girls’ room for months. All things considered, she’d be lucky to get out of this without an STD, considering the rumors of what some of the students got up to.

Her entire plan fell apart as the realization sank in. Her father was in the hospital with a coma thanks to the ABB. Her mother was gone, too. There was no way the Wards would take her in as a hero after she attacked one of their own. Shadow Stalker. No. Sophia Hess. To top everything off, she had probably burned the only bridge back to a normal life in doing so. What could she say? ‘Sorry I freaked out and attacked a Ward and scared the piss out of two students who totally deserved it. Now let’s put this behind us and not arrest me.’

Yeah, she doubted that that would work. Seeing nothing left for her, Taylor curled into a giant furry ball and began to weep.


	2. Loss 1-I Interlude (Armsmaster)

Armsmaster sat at his desk and rewound the footage once again. The PRT had grown suspicious of some of Shadow Stalker’s activities, especially how she seemed to find ways to go solo on her patrols. There was no evidence of her breaking her parole, but people were suspicious none-the-less, so he had installed a hidden camera in the forehead of her mask. The result had shown that she had lied during her official debriefing and had intentionally started a fight with a new trigger who no longer presented a threat. Hell, she hadn’t actually done anything particularly threatening or even anything criminal up until that point. It was enough to kick anyone out of the Wards, especially someone with as spotty a record as Shadow Stalker and, of course, dismissal from the Wards was a breach of her parole. She would go to juvenile detention and everyone would know that the Protectorate East-Northeast’s most prominent attempt at reforming a young cape had failed.

He had lost count of the number of times he had gone over it. As the video of Shadow Stalker goading a new trigger into a fight finished again, he put his face in his hand. This was the last thing that he needed right now. It was a goddamn PR nightmare. He was brought out of his thoughts by the door to his workshop opening. He closed the video and turned to see Miss Militia entering.

“Hannah, how can I help you?” he asked, turning his chair to fully face her.

“I heard that the Board of Directors reviewed your performance yesterday. I wanted to check and see how it had gone? Any good news?” she asked. Armsmaster’s only response was to frown.

Hannah winced. “Shit. I’m sorry, Colin,” she said in sympathy.

Armsmaster just nodded. The review was the other reason for his bad mood. While the Brockton Bay Protectorate had made good progress on fighting the gangs and crime that plagued the city the PR aspect of the operation had been less than stellar. As the head of his portion of the PRT, Armsmaster was the one seen most often in interviews and public statements. Unfortunately, dealing with people was not his strong suit. The result was that the Board was not at all happy with the PRT’s dip in popularity in and around Brockton Bay. A Ward being arrested would be the cherry on top of the shit-sandwich.

Armsmaster sighed. “I really don’t get this whole public relations thing. You’d think that crime being at the lowest point it’s reached in over a decade would win people over.”

“It isn’t that you’ve made so much progress that people notice. It’s how you do it that wins them over,” Miss Militia explained, “Especially when we the only criminals we’ve actually put behind bars are unpowered thugs. They see you as judgmental, quick to jump to conclusions. You seem almost dismissive of people just asking questions. Not to mention that the real backbone behind the gangs, their capes, are almost untouched.”

“I just don’t get people,” Armsmaster said. “You make it seem so easy.”

“That’s because it is,” Miss Militia said as she put her hands on her hips.

“For you,” Armsmaster emphasized. “I know I probably come across as gruff and an asshole but I have only ever told things as I see them.”

There was an awkward silence as they both considered that. Armsmaster thought he saw grudging acknowledgement of that fact cross her face. He merely considered why. Why did the niceties of human interaction escape him so frequently? Not for the first time did Armsmaster wonder if it had to do with his power. He had definitely been awkward before his trigger but he almost seemed to get worse after becoming a Tinker. He couldn’t help but wonder if his penchant for miniaturization and efficiency hadn’t bled over into his social interactions. He wondered if he unconsciously sought every little unnecessary thing he could take out of a statement to get the most information into the fewest words possible. If so, his powers had found things like tact to be wholly lacking in importance. After several seconds of awkward silence Miss Militia walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. He found the gesture comforting.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“They haven’t said it outright, but I think they’re planning on transferring me if we don’t end up with more public support by the next review,” Armsmaster said with a sigh. That was the absolute last thing that he wanted to have happen.  
He knew that Hannah would most likely be the one chosen to succeed him in such an event, which would be good. However, whoever was chosen to replace him, if they bothered at all, would be ineffective until they had a better grasp of the city and its operations. Or they’d just be ineffective. If he wasn’t replaced, well that was even worse. Either way, the Protectorate East-Northeast would have less tangible presence on the streets which meant more leeway for the gangs to get their footing back. He feared, more than anything, that they’d be set back to square one and his years of work cleaning up the city would be wasted. He would not let that happen.

“I know putting on a friendly face for the media is important. I know that this whole thing doesn’t work unless the public trusts us and wants us around but I just…can’t get into it with all of the other bullshit going on!” Armsmaster found himself raising his voice moment by moment. By the end of his sentence he found himself standing.

“The damn Board expects us to work miracles!” Armsmaster had started pacing and was yelling by this point.

“We’re more outnumbered than any other department in the PRT! And, on top of that, we’re the most underfunded!” Armsmaster spouted. Miss Militia just let him continue his rant. She could tell he needed to get this off of his chest. “I’ve worked too hard to make some kind of progress in this city to let it backslide while my replacement is learning the lay of the land. If they even bother replacing me.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Miss Militia asked.

“We can’t afford to keep even half the staff we’d need to actually operate in a city as big as the Bay! Hell, we can’t even afford to keep more than a handful of capes in our branch of the Protectorate or the Wards. Whenever we do manage to recruit someone else half the time they get transferred somewhere that actually has money!” Armsmaster’s pacing had brought him back to his chair and he sat down heavily in it with a sigh, “Like Chicago. And that’s before you throw in the absurd number of villains.”

Armsmaster put his head in his hands. “And whenever I try to bring it up with Piggot or any of the other Directors they just tell me that their resources are being used on more important cities.”

With a deep breath, Armsmaster sat up again. “It’s clear that the Board has all but given up on this city. The only reason that they haven’t just pulled out of it completely is because they’d lose face if they did.”

“Colin, they haven’t given up on the Bay,” Miss Militia said consolingly. “Why would they?”

Armsmaster’s reply was quick. “Because, Hannah, there’s nothing they see worth saving. The economy tanked when sea trade dried up and the cape-led gangs scare off any company that could bring more jobs to the city. It’s a vicious cycle that they don’t seem to want to break.”

Armsmaster just breathed in and out for a bit as he let the frustration leave his body. Miss Militia just let the silence draw out for a time. Eventually she said, “There is an upside to all of this.”

“And what would that be?” Armsmaster asked. He sounded half curious and half disbelieving.

“After saving a school from a rampaging cape, Shadow Stalker is starting to gather a lot of goodwill,” she explained happily. “People like a success story like hers. She’s gone from being barely better than the villains to acting like a true hero,” she emphasized. “That’s the kind of thing that’s going to get you a lot of breathing room from the Board.”

Armsmaster was about to tell her what had really happened with the school incident when a thought occurred to him. Shadow Stalker’s actual performance and her lying during her debriefing would only turn the public against her if they knew. As of right now the only copy of that video was on his personal computer.

“You’re right,” he said. “I suppose I forgot with everything else stressing me out.” He worked a smile onto his face and then his head perked up. “And if we can find and recruit this new parahuman, Taylor Hebert, so soon after her own success story then that’ll be even better.”

“And we can keep one more person out of the gangs,” Miss Militia added.

Armsmaster nodded. “Yes. Now we just have to track her down.”

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Armsmaster looked at the assembled Protectorate members in front of him with pride. Miss Militia, Dauntless, and Velocity were present for the morning briefing. Assault and Battery had the day off. The morning briefing had been fairly normal. It mostly consisted on updates on the movements of the major gangs that the intelligence division had picked up on with some theories on likely actions they’d take in the future thrown into the mix.

There had actually been good news today. “For those of you who haven’t heard yet, last night we made significant headway in our struggle against the gangs of the city. The ABB and the E88, the two biggest criminal organizations in the city, have been dealt quite a blow. Assault and Battery responded to reports of a battle between parahumans and discovered what seemed to be an altercation between the Empire and the ABB. They requested back up, provided by Miss Milita, and proceeded to enter the battle.

“Eventually Hookwolf, Othala, and Oni Lee were subdued and taken into custody. There was one other Empire parahuman on site, believed to be Victor, who managed to escape as well as a handful of the ABB’s footsoldiers.”

Armsmaster’s speech was followed by applause. After a moment, Armsmaster spoke again in a somber voice. “This is a success, but it isn’t a victory, not yet. If we become complacent, we still risk losing. While the loss of Oni Lee is a much more serious blow to the ABB’s strength than the loss of two parahumans is to the Empire, the ABB has supposedly recruited a new parahuman of unknown ability. On top of that both the Empire and Lung are both bound to try and free such high-value parahumans. We won’t have won this particular battle until these three have been sentenced and incarcerated. Until then we have to be even more vigilant than normal.

“We do not yet know what the conflict was about but, as it occurred near the border between the gangs’ territories, the current working theory is that, despite the unusual amount of parahuman activity, it was merely a dispute over land. PRT intelligence will let us know if and when they discover anything else about the incident.”

Armsmaster took a moment to allow everything to sink in. “Now, onto the next order of business, this new parahuman, Fenris.” At the mention of the name he saw some looks of annoyance cross everyone’s face.

“It’s been five days since she triggered and we’ve had nine confirmed sightings of her. They have all been at grocery stores or convenience stores, they’ve all been at night, and they have all resulted in her evading capture by fleeing into the storm drains. So,” he said as he pulled a whiteboard into view. After uncapping a marker he continued, “Intelligence wants a composite report on what we’ve all learned about this new parahuman. I’ll be getting Assault and Battery’s reports later.”

Armsmaster wrote ‘Fenris’ at the top of the whiteboard. He turned back to the assembled heroes. “So, what do we know?” he asked the assembled crowd.

Dauntless was the first to speak up. “She has incredible amounts of regeneration. I saw bullet holes disappear in moments.” Armsmaster proceeded to write that down. He then looked for another volunteer.

Velocity spoke up next. “She seems to possess enhanced hearing and scent, enough to make it extremely difficult to sneak up on her. I’d be comfortable giving her a minor Thinker rating.”

“That doesn’t make sense, though,” Miss Militia interrupted. “She didn’t notice me when I confronted her and I was standing in plain sight.”

Armsmaster frowned. “What were the circumstances surrounding the event?”

“I was approaching the Lord Street Grocery Store in response to a call. I had anticipated Fenris being near the back as she had been reported to be raiding the deli. As I rounded the corner I found myself in front of a series of large windows. I was surprised to find that she was actually near the front of the store. I thought for sure she would have noticed me since I wasn’t more than forty feet away and she had a clear line of sight. However, I still managed to get to the entrance without being noticed,” she explained.

Everyone was quiet for a moment as they contemplated that bit of information. Eventually Dauntless spoke up. “Maybe she’s relying on hearing and scent? Because it sounds like she has poor vision.”

“We’ll put that down as a maybe. Until we can gather more information assume she can see unimpaired.” Armsmaster then wrote down ‘enhanced senses’ and then wrote ‘poor vision’ below it with a question mark.

Armsmaster then added to the list. “Based on what Shadow Stalker told us in her report, Fenris would also have a high Brute rating,” he said as he wrote ‘increased strength’ and ‘high regeneration’ as two more bullet points. “Normally, her strength and durability probably wouldn’t rate more than a rating of Brute 4, but various reports suggest an extraordinarily fast regenerative ability, meaning we should treat the rating as likely being Brute 7.”

After a moment where no one offered more information, Armsmaster felt comfortable that they had gone over all the known information, Armsmaster brought up the next bit of information. “Now, according to the police reports, the only things that have been reported as being stolen have been food stuffs, especially meats. The odd part is the quantity. Each of the nine times that Fenris has appeared she has been reported as devouring vast quantities of food as quickly as possible. The leading theory for this is that she has a severely ramped up metabolism.”

“She’s also been shown to ignore everyone else,” Miss Militia added. “During one of the altercations I responded to, the cashier had reported firing upon Fenris with a small revolver she had hidden under the counter. Despite Fenris clearly reacting to the bullets she simply weathered it until the revolver was empty and then proceeded to go about her business.”

Armsmaster nodded. “So she seems to show restraint. That’s encouraging to know. I want to see Fenris apprehended soon, before she can be recruited by one of the gangs or worse. I’d hate to lose another new parahuman to the gangs.”

Miss Militia spoke again. “According to the initial report provided by Shadow Stalker, this new parahuman triggered in the middle of her school. I would imagine that someone would have connected the disappearance of a student coinciding with the appearance of this new parahuman by now but, as far as I can tell, her identity is still a secret.”

“It turns out that at some point in the recent past Fenris, Taylor Hebert; according to Shadow Stalker; had her locker vandalized with Empire tags. According to Shadow Stalker, Ms. Hebert was also known to be an outcast from every social group in the school and was noted to be quite timid. It seems that everyone interviewed believes this young woman’s disappearance is most likely due to actions by the ABB in response to the Empire tags, especially since the school is known to be a hotspot for gang recruiting.”

Armsmaster took a moment to see if there would be any further questions. When none were forthcoming he decided to wrap up the meeting. “Also, for the next few weeks I will have at least one extra member of the team assigned to base at all times. We will be at elevated risk while we have three of the parahuman gang members in the city under lock and key. I expect us to prevent this headway from being lost.” For the first time since his last review by the Board, Armsmaster felt that things were actually going well.


	3. Loss 1-2

The early afternoon air was greeted with the sounds of metal creaking and concrete breaking. With a sigh Taylor crawled her way out of the storm drain she had just torn the grate off of. The cold wind buffeted her super-powered form. It had been snowing since the early morning and now there were several inches on the ground as Taylor exited the storm drains fully and began to make her way toward an alleyway. Fortunately the part of the city that she was in was a rundown neighborhood near the Docks. Given that she was near a group of apparently abandoned buildings it was no surprise that there was no one to be surprised by her appearance.

What she needed was a place to think. That was something that she found hard to do lately. Her enhanced hearing and smell had a lot to do with that. There was just so much more information than she was used to that it was hard to concentrate. It was like trying to think with two different heavy metal songs playing in your ears at the same time. In a city the size of Brockton Bay, though, there wasn’t anywhere that was easy on such keen senses. 

When she was well into the alley and away from any prying eyes she sat down in the snow. She ignored the rumbling of her stomach as she sat down in the snow. While her wolf form kept her warm in the cold weather (or at least kept her from freezing to death) it had a huge downside. After the first few hours of being in her wolf form, Taylor felt like she was starving. She could never remember being so hungry. She had no money on her and, while there was some stashed in her room, she couldn’t bring herself to enter that place, not then and not now. That would mean confronting the fact that she was well and truly alone, and that was something she couldn’t handle. Her only alternative had been to hide out in the storm drains and try to come up with a better plan while ignoring her growing hunger.

Long after night had fallen the only ideas Taylor had were the ones she had been trying to avoid: she would have to steal the food she needed or start going through a restaurant’s trash for leftovers. Both thoughts appalled her for different reasons, but the ever growing hunger was making some of these decisions for her. However, rifling through trash for food appealed to her far less than the alternative, so she had found a convenience store to rob.  
She had been hesitant at first, but the moment she had started tearing into a bag of jerky the gnawing hunger had been replaced with immense relief and joy. After that she had almost lost herself in a feeding frenzy. The only thing that had drawn her out of it had been when she had been shot by the cashier (it was hard to tell when she couldn’t see that well, but it sounded like a gunshot). When she realized that the wound had healed almost immediately and given that the gun couldn’t really hurt her she continued stuffing her face.

She knew it was only a matter of time before the PRT or Protectorate responded so she ate as fast as possible, only chewing enough for the food to fit down her throat. She would have liked to take some of it with her but she didn’t really have anything to carry the food in. Not only that, but she couldn’t really carry things well in this form.

Taylor took a moment to examine her hand. It still had an opposable thumb and was still capable of manipulating objects but the fingers were much stubbier and lacked a lot of her human form’s fine motor skills. This form also seemed to be better suited to traveling in a quadrupedal fashion. She could stand up if she wanted but her balance wasn’t what it had been. Besides, she was faster on all fours, something that she desperately needed whenever the heroes had shown up. And that had been how she had spent the last five days: hiding in the storm drains, almost always hungry, and running from the heroes.

It was shitty and demoralizing. She just knew that her life was over after the incident at school. She couldn’t see how she couldn’t have been outed and labeled a villain by now. She couldn’t show her face in public without worrying about the heroes that she used to admire trying to apprehend her. The worst part was that she couldn’t even visit her father in the hospital.

That thought had gotten Taylor contemplating her dad and she realized something that crushed her spirit. Their financial situation had not been great after her mom had died and, though he never discussed such things with her, she was pretty sure that their insurance wasn’t that great and didn’t know if it would cover his current stay in the hospital. Either way, now that there was no money coming in to pay for said insurance (or to pay medical bills) she didn’t know what would happen to him. She thought for sure that Brockton General wouldn’t just throw a comatose man onto the street or pull the plug on him, but that did little to silence the nagging doubt in her mind. And the fear had just grown.  
No matter what the outcome with the hospital was, Taylor was sure that she would never see her father again. In fact, she thought his future looked grim. Once the full weight of that knowledge had come down upon her, she could feel her will to go on slipping, which brought her to her current place sitting in the snow in an abandoned alley. She was now considering what she should do next.

She was considering just turning herself into the Protectorate. She thought that it was what her father would have wanted. Maybe they wouldn’t just send her to the Birdcage for what she had done. Maybe they’d lessen her punishment due to the circumstances surrounding the event. Even if they did she couldn’t seem to care. Her other option was to just turn back to human and stay in the alley until the end. Even if she chose life, she didn’t see anything worth continuing for. She wouldn’t feel any less hollow and alone.

No, either way she didn’t see anything left to live for. She turned back to human and let the falling snow start accumulating on her. The air was just as cold as the last time she had tried changing back, but that was a good thing. It meant that it wouldn’t take as long for hypothermia to set in. It wouldn’t take as long for the end. The fact that she was nude also helped.

In minutes, Taylor was fighting the urge to curl up to try and preserve body heat. If she did it would just make the whole thing take longer. She decided that she needed something to distract her, so she decided to think back on her parents and the good times they had had. Back before her dad was put into a coma. Back before Emma had turned traitor on her. Back before her mom had died.

That last bit got her thinking about the time after her mom died. He had almost fallen apart afterward, leaving her without anyone to lean on when she needed it most. She tried not to blame him, she knew that he blamed himself for what had happened. Over time Taylor was able to piece together that her parents had gotten into a shouting match and that her dad had, for the first time, lost his temper with his family. After her mother had stormed out she had pulled out her cellphone. No one knew who she had been trying to call, but the result had been her fatal crash.

Then Taylor realized something. Despite the life seeming to drain out of her father in the aftermath (made all the worse by blaming himself), he had managed to continue on. Life had beaten him down and, though it had taken awhile, he got back up and he managed to push through the nightmare. Taylor knew that he would want her to do so as well. In moments, she was back to her wolf form and warm once more.

All she needed was something to focus on until…well she didn’t know what or when, exactly. What she did know, though, was what she could focus on. She knew that she’d need money to keep her father’s medical bills paid. Unfortunately, there were desperately few ways for a runaway, superpowered teen to do that and most of them would likely get someone hurt.

Taylor’s further thoughts on the matter were interrupted when she heard gunshots. That had her interest peaked. She decided to head in that direction just in case someone was hurt. However, it wasn’t long before her enhanced hearing picked up more.  
“Hurry, Grue! We have to reach Bitch!” It sounded like a girl about my age.

“Agreed! I’m not dying to the ABB because you wanted to take this stupid job!” That one sounded male. As soon as Taylor heard him say ‘ABB’ she had taken off. She didn’t care who the thugs were chasing or why, if the so called ‘Azn Bad Boys’ were involved, Taylor was getting involved. As she ran, Taylor heard another series of gunshots along with multiple people shouting in a language she couldn’t understand. Then everything from that area just went silent.

As Taylor neared an intersection of two alleys she realized she’d have to slow down to make the turn at all. She didn’t have time for that so she merely jumped and leapt off of the corner in front of her, continuing towards the where the gunshots had come from and leaving shattered brick in her wake.

She exited the alley just in time to run head long into a black fog. Suddenly she found herself without sound or sight to guide her. She skidded to a halt and felt her legs slip out from under her as she tried to regain her bearings.

Taylor’s keen nose still worked, though, and so she began turning her head and taking deep breaths, trying to pinpoint as many scents as she could. She smelled three people near her, two male and one female, she thought. More importantly, though, she smelled many more people, though the scents were fainter. She figured that those were the ABB members and that they were farther away.

Taylor reared up on two legs and let out a surprisingly silent roar. Though she couldn’t see, she could still smell, so she just moved toward the smell of gunpowder and started swinging through the darkness blindly. She knew that she’d eventually hit something.

Before long, Taylor’s hand connected with something that proceeded to break. She thought it might have been a leg. About that time the black fog receded and Taylor saw…well, not much more, actually. She could tell that someone was curled up by the wall to her right with many more in front of her. She couldn’t really make out faces, but she could tell they had the ABB red and green color scheme and that was all she needed to know.

The remaining thugs decided to flee, having decided that discretion was the better part of valor, but Taylor was faster. A stray backhand tossed one of the thugs across the street into a parked car with a series of cracks and snaps. He lay groaning on the ground as Taylor turned her attention to the third member.

The third thug, the one with the gun, had managed to put some distance between himself and the giant wolf-person. Taylor wasn’t concerned, though. A casual leap and she was practically on top of the thug. She grabbed him by the back of his coat and lifted him off of the ground before slamming him back down. He may have been a battered and groaning mess, but Taylor made sure to take the gun from him just in case, casually crushing it in her hands.

After that it was a matter of hopping from on thug to the next, bashing them as she went. The last two had managed to duck out of sight while Taylor was busy with their compatriots. She might have chased after them but the smell of blood brought her mind off of that path and back to other matters. She gave a short roar of victory and turned to see that one of, what she assumed to be, the people running from the ABB was laying on the ground while holding his leg. Each one had a large duffle bag near them.

Taylor’s attention was caught by movement in her peripheral vision. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking at, but there were three, they were large (even larger than her) and monstrous looking and that one of them had someone riding it. When she caught a whiff, though, she realized that they were monstrous dogs. They were off to the side but were slowly moving in between her and the trio that the ABB had been chasing.

Taylor decided that approaching the group would probably be taken as aggressive by the person riding the giant dog, so she stayed where she was. It wouldn’t do to start trouble with the people she had just saved. However, she wasn’t going to just let this rudeness go.

“You’re welcome.” Though she had dropped back to a quadrupedal stance to appear less threatening, Taylor let her annoyance leak into her voice. Well, she tried to take an annoyed tone. Since her voice had become pretty inhuman it was hard to tell if it worked.

“Holy shit! The giant dog just talked!” the smaller guy exclaimed.

“It ain’t a dog, dumbass!” Bitch reprimanded him.

“Fine, wolf, whatever!” the figure seemed to shrug with the shoulder that wasn’t supporting his teammate.

“S’not a wolf, either, stupid.” Bitch’s opinion of the guy seemed to be low.

“What?” was his only response.

The person on the ground grunted in pain as one of the other figures helped him up. “Stand down, Bitch. She saved our asses.” He also sounded young.

There was a moment when Taylor thought that Bitch (Taylor assumed it was a cape name because she doubted the person commanding three monstrous dogs would let someone talk to her like that otherwise) was just going to ignore the order. Before long, though, Bitch relented.

She whistled and gave a command. “Heel! Back!” Her voice sounded more than a bit rough. The three monster dogs obeyed without hesitation. They stopped growling and began backing up a bit. “Wouldn’t’a had to if ya’d brought me with,” she groused.  
“We aren’t having this conversation right now,” the injured one grunted. Taylor thought he turned to look at her.

The other girl looked at her compatriots and gave them an exasperated huff. When she turned back to Taylor her tone was much more cheerful. “We appreciate the help, by the way, despite how Bitch acts about it.”

She pointed at the two guys behind her. “That’s Grue and the one supporting him is Regent.” She then pointed at the trio of dogs. “The one riding the giant dog is Bitch, though the PRT calls her Hellhound.”

“Stupid name,” Taylor heard the girl mutter. She probably hadn’t intended for it to be heard, but Taylor’s enhanced hearing picked up on it anyway.

“Oh!” Taylor thought that Tattletale seemed to grow more alert. “We’ve got a cape on the way! Few minutes at most.”

“Shit!” Grue exclaimed. “Look, I want to make you an offer-”

“What?” Bitch sounded surprised.

“-But I don’t have time to do it here. Follow us and, once we’re under the radar, we’ll talk in actual detail. Sound good?”

Taylor thought for a bit. On the one hand, these were probably villains, though that just meant that she would be in like company at this point. On the other hand, Taylor was confident that she could escape if things went south during the talk. Plus, whether the approaching cape was a hero, rogue, or villain, she didn’t think that sticking around would be a good idea, either. She nodded. “Sure.”

Without another word Grue climbed onto one of the monster dogs (with help due to his injured leg) and Tattletale and Regent got the duffle bags secured and then Regent mounted a dog with Grue and Tattletale had her own to ride. Grue took a moment to wave Taylor forward and then the group headed off with Taylor following on all fours.

They quickly turned onto a side street and then another. The buildings flew by at a rapid pace. Taylor thought that she’d have trouble following any of it if she were in human form and had her glasses. As it was, they were just a continuous, indistinct blur. Eventually the five teens turned into an alleyway and came to a stop.

“I think this should be far enough. Tattletale?” Grue asked.

After a moment the girl answered. “Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

Grue let out a sigh of relief. “Good. First of all, I’d like to thank you…what is your name, anyway?”

“Fenris,” Tattletale supplied. “The PRT is calling her Fenris, if I’m not mistaken.” Taylor was a bit surprised to find out that the PRT had already come up with a name for her. It made sense, though. She had made an extremely public appearance and had continued to cross paths with the PRT since then. They weren’t going to simply refer to her as ‘that wolf girl.’

“Thank you for the help, Fenris. Now, let’s get down to business. We’ve been looking for more members-“Bitch gave an annoyed grunt at that, “-and, frankly, you look like you could provide some much needed muscle.”

“Fuck that!” Bitch said aggressively. “I’m plenty of muscle.”

“Given the strength of the capes in the city there’s no such thing as enough muscle,” Tattletale interjected.

“How can we trust her?!” Bitch demanded.

“If she was going to turn on us then she had a great opportunity to do it earlier,” Grue explained. “Since she didn’t I doubt she’ll do it now. Besides, you aren’t the one making these decisions. This is something that affects all of us. So what do you two think?”

“Why do you think I’d even want to join you in the first place?” Taylor asked before the others could respond.

“You followed us, didn’t you?” Tattletale asked as she hopped off of the dog she had been riding.

“So?” Taylor asked.

“So, if you didn’t intend to at least hear us out then you wouldn’t have followed us in the first place,” the girl explained. “Look, before we go any further I think I should go over the benefits.”

“Go on,” Taylor said after a moment of thought.

Tattletale raised one hand and put the other on her hip. “Well, for one thing, we’re a much better choice than any of the other organizations available to villains in this city, if I do say so myself.”

Taylor was a bit annoyed that they had immediately pegged her as a villain. However, she supposed that was accurate, now, so she decided not to contradict the villain.

Tattletale continued her sales pitch. “And you at least won’t have to worry about being forced into service by the E88 or the Merchants or worse. We also have a pretty awesome base, though that’s all I can tell you about it for now. Then there’s the pay.” That caught Taylor’s attention.

“We’re paid two grand a month,” Tattletale provided.

“That doesn’t sound like much for what you do,” Taylor growled out in her monstrous voice.

Tattletale just chuckled. “That’s just what we get paid to be on call, basically. We also get paid for every job we do on top of any loot we manage to nab along the way.” The girl ended her statement by gesturing toward the bag strapped to her ride. “All in all, we usually bring in a good haul every month.”

Taylor quickly realized that the answer to one of her problems had practically fallen into her lap. With this she could make sure her father would be taken care of, no problem. All she had to do was make a small leap and admit to herself out loud that she was now a villain. Since her other options weren’t any better, that wasn’t a hard decision.

“All right, I’m in,” Taylor confirmed.

“Like hell you are!” Bitch shouted. “We’ve been doing fine without anyone else.”

“This affects all of us, Bitch!” Grue interrupted. “You don’t get to make this decision by yourself!” He took a calming breath and addressed the other two members of his team. “What do you two think?”

“I think she could be helpful,” Tattletale supplied.

“I’m always for having someone else to do the heavy lifting,” was Regent’s vote.

“Then it’s settled,” Grue began.

“Hell no!” Bitch almost lunged from her dog.

“I told you this isn’t your decision!” Grue reprimanded her. “We,” he gestured to himself and the other two members. “Have decided that she’ll be a good fit for the group.” Rachel backed down, but she didn’t seem to be particularly happy.  
After a moment, Grue seemed to be content with her acceptance. He turned back to Taylor. “As I was saying, Fenris, welcome to the Undersiders.”


	4. Loss 1-3

Taylor found the trip to the Undersiders’s headquarters was odd, to say the least. They weren’t willing to trust her with the location just yet. She had agreed to join, but she understood that they weren’t willing to take that at face value from the start. So they had blindfolded her, told her to get on one of the dogs (Bitch had to pump it up to the size of a super duty truck) and she was given a ride, blind and holding on desperately, to their HQ. During the trip she had plenty of time to think on Tattletale calling her Fenris. She had said that the PRT had given her that name. She could only imagine that it meant that her identity had been made public. Everyone would know by now that she was a violent lunatic who had attacked a pair of school-girls.

When the blindfold was removed Taylor was able to get down and walk on her own. However, she found herself…less than impressed by what she saw. All that was in view was a long abandoned industrial sector. “So, where’s the headquarters? All of these buildings look…run down.” She noticed that speech impediment again.

It was bad enough that the group was having trouble understanding her, something that she figured was going to become really old really fast. Soon, though, Grue seemed to figure it out. “That’s the point,” he told her. “We want it to look like any other abandoned building on the outside. It draws less attention that way.” As the two spoke, the others began to dismount from their dogs.

Taylor stopped when she heard that and she immediately felt a bit stupid. It made a lot of sense in retrospect. “Oh,” was all she eventually managed to say with that harsh, guttural voice she currently had. Seeing that that was all that Taylor had to say, the group kept moving again, though not before Bitch shook her head with an annoyed look.

“Besides,” Grue added, “This isn’t where our base is. Since we’re trying to avoid attention, we’re giving Bitch’s dogs some time to shrink to their original size. They stand out otherwise.” Taylor looked to see that the dogs were beginning to deflate. She simply mouthed and ‘Oh’ and, without another word, the four of them shuffled down an alley, keeping out of sight and Taylor followed.

Grue turned to look back at Taylor. “We should do the same. It’ll stand out if people see a car-sized wolf in the area with four teens in costumes. So, we need to find an alley somewhere where we can change clothes and you can change back.”

As soon as he mentioned changing back, Taylor looked away to try to hide her embarrassment. “Uhhh...that’s…going to be a problem,” she told them.

The group stopped and looked at the giant wolf for a moment. Suddenly, Regent began shaking with laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Bitch asked.

Tattletale slapped a hand to her forehead. “It’s because she has no clothes. How did I not think of that?”

“So?,” Bitch said with a shrug. “A little streaking never killed anyone,” was her crude response. Then she turned to look at Taylor with an annoyed look. “Besides, you’re already naked, dumbass.”

Taylor just stood up straight and crossed her arms in indignation. “That’s hardly the same thing!” she insisted. “At least like this I’m covered by fur.”

Bitch just scoffed. “Yeah, covered. Keep telling yourself that all you want, your junk’s still gonna be out there for everyone to see.” When Taylor did nothing but sputter in embarrassment, Bitch just snorted a quick laugh and shook her head.

Before anything else could be said by wither of them, though, Tattletale and Grue stepped between them, with Grue facing Bitch and Tattletale facing Taylor.

Grue and Bitch were having an intense staring contest when Tattletale began speaking. “Look,” she put her hands up in a placating manner, “She’s just saying things to get to you.” Taylor just huffed and turned away.

“It’s true!” Tattletale insisted. “Look,” she took a step closer. “Just ignore her for now. And as far as getting you into our base undetected, we have some tricks,” she looked over her shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Grue?”

Taylor looked over Tattletale’s shoulder to see that Grue had gotten imposingly close to Bitch and that she seemed to be backing down. By now the dogs looked like their skin was about to slough off, which Taylor found to be more than a little unsettling to look at, and so Taylor turned away. When Tattletale called to him again, Taylor heard Grue answer. “Yeah, it’s fine. You and me will wait here until the others go in.” At this point he raised his hand and a dark mist started leaking out and his voice became strange and distorted. “Afterward, we’ll go in under the cover of my darkness. You won’t be able to see, but should be fine. If your sense of smell is anything like an actual dog’s, you’ll be able to follow my scent. If not, then I’ll just have to guide you by hand or something. Sound good?”

“What’s it matter, anyway? The PRT have probably made my identity public by now. It’s not like I won’t be recognized regardless of how I look.”

“That’ not what happened. Your identity is safe,” Tattletale assured her. Taylor looked unconvinced. “Look, it’s a bit of a story and I’d rather not tell it out here. I promise, once we get inside, I’ll explain it to you, ok?” Taylor thought about his idea and acquiesced. With a nod, she returned to a quadrupedal stance as it seemed to be a bit more comfortable and it made her a feel a bit better about her nakedness.

Taylor watched as Regent and Tattletale went down opposite alleyways. Bitch stayed where she was and began digging through the flesh of her dogs. Sickened by the sight and sound of the squelching of the girl digging through rapidly decaying flesh, Taylor turned away.

After about ten minutes the sounds stopped and she risked a glance in Bitch’s direction. There were three piles of flesh and a happy seeming dog in the middle of each one. It was about that time that Tattletale and Regent walked back out of their respective alleys in normal clothes and each carrying a duffle bag.

Regent was dressed in a plain, blue shirt with black jeans and a red coat with what could only be described as a lazy smile on his face. Tattletale, however, still sported the vulpine grin Taylor had seen on her face for most of the time she had known the teenage supervillain. Now that she wasn’t wearing a mask it also became apparent that she had freckles across the bridge of her nose, almost going from the end of one cheek to the other. She was wearing a blouse with a floral print and skinny jeans as well as a black coat.

“All right me, Rachel, and Alec will go in and we’ll be waiting for you two,” Tattletale said as she pointed to each person in turn. Then she turned to face Taylor. “Also, I’ll get you something to wear while I’m in there.” She gave Taylor another vulpine grin and sauntered off out of the alley.

Alec just shrugged and followed after. Without turning he called back “See you guys inside.” Rachel just brushed past Taylor without saying anything.

As the other three members of the team walked away, Grue turned spoke to Taylor. She noticed that his voice had returned to normal with the absence of the black fog. “It’ll take some work to clear out, but we’ve got a spare room you can stay in.”  
“Thanks,” was the only thing she could think of to say.

Grue shrugged. “It’s the same thing we’d do for anyone else on the team.” A silence settled between us after that. Taylor wasn’t really sure what to say to a villain who had just offered me both a job and a place to stay.  
“Brian, by the way,” Grue said out of the blue.

Taylor turned to him in confusion. “What?” was the most articulate thing she could think of to say.

Whether or not it was because he was speaking to a giant, talking wolf that did it, Taylor wasn’t sure, but she thought he had an awkward air about him. “That’s my name. Out of costume, I mean. We actually never got your name, though.”  
“It’s Taylor,” the wolf girl rumbled.

Grue nodded. “The others are Alec, Lisa-she’s the blond one-, and Rachel. Or Bitch as she calls herself. The PRT call her Hellhound, but she hates the name. Just remember, whenever we’re in costume you should only refer to us by our aliases.” He then looked up as if he was thinking about something. “Come to think of it, we should probably get you a costume, too.”

“Not walking around as a giant naked wolf would be great,” Taylor replied.

Grue merely shook his head. “No, I meant for before you enter your wolf form.” Then he tilted his head and shrugged. “Although, I suppose a spare for you to change into afterward would be a good idea, too.”

Taylor just gave him the closest to a quizzical look she could manage. “Why would I be waiting to change shape? Wouldn’t you want me to be as strong as possible from the start?”

“Well, that wouldn’t be bad per se,” Grue said. “However, we try to operate a bit stealthier. Even Bitch doesn’t usually pump her dogs too much until the action starts and I’m assuming that you can’t change the size of your form?”

Taylor nodded her agreement. “Then that means you’ll draw a lot of attention if you change. Even in a city like Brockton Bay, a car-sized wolf catches attention, so we need you to remain as inconspicuous before and after as you can.” An awkward silence fell on them after that.

After a while of waiting, Grue turned and looked down the alley. Taylor caught his movement and looked down the alley in curiosity. She noted that she couldn’t see any of the others. The black fog from earlier began leaking from Grue’s body again. “Looks like it’s time to go. Just stick to my scent trail and you should be fine. And don’t worry, I’ll know if you start getting lost.”

After he said that, Taylor’s vision was quickly obscured by the encroaching blackness. Not only was her vision completely obscured but she had been rendered almost deaf. However, that was all that the fog did to affect her senses. Her senses of touch and smell were still in full effect and she was easily able to follow Grue’s scent trail.

Her route was mostly clear of obstacles thanks to Grue’s path, but her sheer bulk and the imprecise nature of her lead meant that ended up bumping into alley walls and dumpsters all along the way. “How much further?” she asked. When she did she noted that she could barely hear her own voice despite her enhanced hearing. She immediately felt foolish. “Dammit, of course he can’t hear me,” she muttered to herself. If she could barely hear herself, how could Grue hear her from who knows how far ahead he was.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes, though, before Taylor found herself stepping out of the obscuring fog and saw Grue standing in an open doorway. Without wasting a moment, she rushed into the doorway and out of sight, being sure to avoid Grue. After she was in, Grue closed the door.

“See? Easy.” His voice had a tinge of the same oddness from before, though it had disappeared by the end. “And while my fog obscures everyone else’s vision and hearing, I can still see and hear perfectly inside it. Now, head on upstairs. I think Lisa’s already found something for you to wear.”

Without another word, Taylor walked up the stairs, with them groaning in protest at every step, and soon saw Lisa standing with a bundle of clothes in her arms, still wearing that same vulpine grin. The next thing that Taylor noticed was that the upstairs looked surprisingly homey for a villain hideout. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have sworn it looked like the kind of loft apartment you would expect a solidly middle class citizen to be living in. The place was well furnished with several couches. There was even an armchair and they were all pointed to look at a large entertainment center adorned with more gaming systems than she had ever seen before.

Taylor heard someone clear their throat and she turned to see Lisa with a concerned look. Every step she took made the floor creak dangerously. “Maybe you should wait until after you’ve changed before you go looking around. I’m not sure how well the floor is going to hold up.” She walked over to an open door and set the bundle of clothes down just inside. “You can change in my room and, after we get one of the storage closets cleaned out for you, feel free to look around all you want.”

“Sorry,” was all Taylor mumbled. She was still a bit overwhelmed by her current situation. A snort drew her attention to Rachel sitting in the corner with her dogs. Without her mask on, it was clear that the girl wasn’t what Taylor would call ‘pretty.’ In fact, she thought that Rachel’s face matched her aggressive personality well. Hers was a face accustomed to anger and confrontation. The entire time Taylor watched, the brutish girl was giving her a nasty look.

Taylor quickly ducked into the room and closed the door. She closed her eyes and, with a sigh, she returned to her original form. The battery of sounds and smells that had been cluttering her mind disappeared and the ravenous hunger was muted. Not gone, but much less insistent. When she opened her eyes she was greeted with a full-length mirror. She could see that her hair, something she had endeavored to take care of as it was really her only feminine feature, was in complete disarray and was full of tangles. She also noticed that, while she had always been thin, now she was downright scrawny. She’d say she was almost malnourished and that was only after five days of being in her changer form.

Taking a look around the room, she found clothes strewn about, all of which smelled a bit…used. Up against one wall was a desk with a laptop, something Taylor had only ever seen at Emma’s house. She also saw an unmade bed and a dresser with its contents in disarray. She also saw a corkboard leaning up against the wall. She couldn’t tell what, if anything was on it, as it was also turned to face the wall. All in all, the room looked like it belonged to a normal teenage girl, albeit one with a fair bit of money to throw around.

Getting herself back on track, Taylor got dressed quickly. She may have been inside, but it was still cold. She found that, on top of the shirt and pants, there was a set of underwear still in the packaging. Even from where she was standing, Taylor could confirm, by smell, that they had never been worn. After getting dressed, she was standing in a light blue, long-sleeved shirt with a floral print as well as a pair of jeans held up with a plain, white belt. She left the bra where it had been placed as it wasn’t even close to fitting. The shirt and pants were too big, too, but that could be dealt with.

Once Taylor was out of the room she took a look around. She found Alec laying on one of the couches watching a movie she didn’t recognize. Looking at one of the corners revealed Rachel laying with her dogs. She found Brian by the fridge, still in his costume except for the helmet. She found Lisa sitting at what she assumed was the dinning-room table. She walked over and addressed the blond girl. “Thanks for the clothes.”

Lisa just shrugged. “Not a problem. We’ll be getting you some clothes as soon as we can. However, for now, we need to lay low, so you’ll need to stay here for the next few days.”

“So…” Taylor said with hesitation. Then the words began to flow freely. “You said that my identity was still secret. How? I smashed a school and Shadow Stalker knows who I am! Isn’t that the kind of thing that gets your face plastered on every news channel around the country?!”

Lisa held her hands up in a placating manner. “Like I said, things haven’t turned out as poorly as you expected. If the PRT knows who you are, then they have declined to release the information.”

Taylor interrupted in her hurried explanation. “How wouldn’t they know!? How wouldn’t anyone know!? Sophia is the kind of bitch that would tell everyone just to ruin my life?!”

Taylor’s latest statement grabbed the entire team’s attention. Even Rachel looked up in surprise when she realized that the girl had revealed the Ward’s name.

Alec was quick to get off of the couch he had been laying on. “You probably shouldn’t talk about that anymore.”

Taylor turned to look at Alec with an incredulous look. “What? Why not!?”

“Because,” Brian said, as he advanced toward her, “That would be breaking one of the Unwritten Rules.”

“The unwritten rules?” Taylor asked in confusion. At this point, Rachel lost interest and went back to interacting with her dogs. Alec went back to laying on the couch now that the discussion had lost his interest.

“Yes,” Lisa explained calmly. “The fact that they’re unwritten and, for the most part, unknown to non-parahumans, means it’s not surprising that you would blurt out something like that. But, if you go around revealing people’s identities like that, someone is going to end up bringing the hammer down on you. And if you do it to a Ward, it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Wait for her to break this rule?” At this point Taylor was gesturing wildly.

Lisa just maintained her calm demeanor. “The way I see it there are two parahumans who know each other’s secret identities but neither one has been made public. Seems pretty even to me. One of the worst things you can do right now is to change that situation. Like I said, if the PRT or Protectorate do know your identity, then they have decided not to reveal it. I’m not sure why, but the most likely reason I can think of is that they’re reluctant to burn that bridge.”

Brian took the moment to insert himself into the conversation again. “Look, I think the first thing that we should do is go over the Unwritten Rules. They’re going to be a very important part of your life from now on.”

Taylor seemed to deflate a bit as the wind was taken out of her sails. “Alright.”

“Afterward, I would also like to talk about how we run things around here. You know, talk about ground rules,” Brian added.

“Hey dork!” Alec said without getting off of the couch. “As much as Shadow Bitch deserves it for ruining the best couch we’ve ever had, don’t go spreading around her identity.”

“How did she ruin your couch?” was the brunette’s response.

Brian just sighed. “She’s developed a bit of a hate-on for me ever since she found out that my powers mess with her powers. Well, one day, when the Wards responded to a job we had been pulling at the time, she decided to switch her tranqs out for actual bolts and I ended up with one right in my side. I ended up bleeding all over one of our couches and it was ruined. And Alec’s right, it was a really comfortable couch.”

“But isn’t that against her probation?” Taylor asked.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t seem to matter much to her,” Brian said. Taylor opened her mouth to ask why Brian (as Grue) hadn’t said anything to the PRT. She closed her mouth almost immediately, though, having realized that it would be a villain’s word against the word of one of their Wards. The least reputable Ward, yes, but the only proof he’d have is a crossbow bolt that he could have just bought. Before she sat down for the talk about the Unwritten Rules, Taylor took a glance over to Rachel. She saw the brutish girl giving her a dirty look once again. Seeing that she wasn’t going to stop, Taylor turned away and braced herself for a long few days.


End file.
